Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[oddoneout]

Thanks, Aunt Daisy, it's good to hear; so they did do Brian as recently as twenty-three years ago!. Maybe they'll repeat that one day. I wonder how I missed it at the time, though how I recall . I was at work in 2001 (the year of the Foot-and-Mouth epizootic).

Not the symphonies but The Tinker's Wedding was on Sunday Breakfast last January - I thought it was more recently than that, but tempus fugit ever more rapidly these days, as does memory...

[oliver sudden]

Boult performed the 'Gothic' on the occasion of Brian's 90th birthday (1966), I wonder if the photo is of the rehearsal for this. Bootlegs of this perf. were circulating after....and most unlikely, it had a cult following in California where Phil Lesh, the bass player in The Grateful Dead was taken with it. Later anonymously under the auspices of the Rex Foundation he channelled funds to Marco Polo to record the 'Gothic', and, having sponsored recordings of Brian on EMI and Hyperion as well, turned his attention to Robert Simpson and sponsored recordings of the symphonies on Hyperion.

By the way, Tom McKinney mentions (quite often) and plays Brian's works (infrequently)....Stoke connection no doubt. My own interest was aroused by the music master at my school who knew Brian and pointed out his house in Lewes, Sussex, which I passed every day on my way to and from school - he had moved to Brighton by then unfortunately.

As you probably know, the Rex Foundation also supported some perhaps surprising things in the fairly hard-line modernist direction for a while there!

[Roger Webb]

As you probably know, the Rex Foundation also supported some perhaps surprising things in the fairly hard-line modernist direction for a while there!

Yes, Phil Lesh, who directed the distribution of the Rex fund, had studied trumpet and composition under Luciano Berio at Mills College......Steve Reich was a student on the same graduate course!

[smittims]

Am I right recalling that some at least of the finance from the Rex Foundation came from ex-Beatle George Harrison? And does anyone rememberthe ful-page advert in the Gramophone circa 1969/70 announcing the start of 'Apple' records,where they invited composers to submit music , the first result being John Tavener's The Whale? . Or is this rose-tinted nostalgia?

[Dance Band Spiv]

Monday 27th May on Breakfast, they played Florence Price Symphony No 4 in D minor (2nd mvmt, Andante cantabile): Philadelphia Orchestra. Conductor: Yannick Nézet‐Séguin. Later that morning, Essential Classics played the exact same item, same Movement, same Orchestra, same recording. I accept that Radio 3 is a little bit in love with all things Florence Price at the moment, but isn't this a bit too much of a good thing?

[french frank]

Monday 27th May on Breakfast, they played Florence Price Symphony No 4 in D minor (2nd mvmt, Andante cantabile): Philadelphia Orchestra. Conductor: Yannick Nézet‐Séguin. Later that morning, Essential Classics played the exact same item, same Movement, same Orchestra, same recording. I accept that Radio 3 is a little bit in love with all things Florence Price at the moment, but isn't this a bit too much of a good thing?

In case you missed it.

[antongould]

If it's 'light' you want - over to Radio 2, the Light Programme.

It is precisely bicoz we don't wish to see Radio 3, a supposedly serious channel, diminish into the 'background muzak & bits' of the Light Programme, that this Forum exists

.

vints it was this I mentioned in my, decidedly mushy, post on FNiMN and I should have reread it first … you didn’t at all imply this was not the place for me ….. and I, very greatly, value your postings …. keep up the excellent work … as a daft aside I am sure you follow ITV’s Vera avidly and so you will be excited to learn that the upcoming final series has scenes set in Cambois …

[vinteuil]

I am sure you follow ITV’s Vera avidly and so you will be excited to learn that the upcoming final series has scenes set in Cambois …

... ahh, Cammuss! We had such a good holiday in the North-East based in Cambois (/ˈkæməs/), and still have great memories. (I have to say we have watched a couple of episodes of Vera and found them a bit of a slog : but if Cambois features - we're well up for it... )


.

[Roger Webb]

Skellers back in his rightful place....has been since Monday, nobody said! Might turn over at 9.30 from YLE!

[antongould]

Skellers back in his rightful place....has been since Monday, nobody said! Might turn over at 9.30 from YLE!

indeed back in his rightful place IMVVHO

[LMcD]

indeed back in his rightful place IMVVHO

It looks as though GM is back on July 1st.

[Roger Webb]

It looks as though GM is back on July 1st.

She's probably at Glastonbury!

[gradus]

She's probably at Glastonbury!

Indeed she is and was interviewed on Woman's Hour yesterday about her appearance there, telling us some of the music she intends to programme. Sensibly it includes Gardens in the Rain and I think she intends to conclude with the finale of The Firebird.

[Roger Webb]

Indeed she is and was interviewed on Woman's Hour yesterday about her appearance there, telling us some of the music she intends to programme. Sensibly it includes Gardens in the Rain and I think she intends to conclude with the finale of The Firebird.

I was joking! But my wife says she heard that GM was 'on' at Glastonbury.....not the first time they've had 'classical' music on there, I remember a last act of Valkyrie that was televised one year......and in any case Rutland Boughton started the whole thing anyway!

[smittims]

I listened to the Woman's Hour interview live (it's on BBC Sounds if you're interested) , and noted that very little of the 'classical' music she will be playing is what I would call 'classsical'. It includes Max Richter and music by a friend of hers who writes music with a 'beat'.

More than that though, I was suspicious about this event. I'd be interested to know who's paying for it, whose idea it was, and what the purpose is. I think it most unlikely that any regular Glastonbury festival attendees will go away deternined to listen to Schumann, let alone a Handel opera, and I'm sure GM must realise this. So just why is it happening? We weren't told. Naturally much of the interview was taken up by laughter about how wet or muddy she might be, and for the rest she was so careful to sit on the fence, saying for instance that she wanted people to realise that classical music doesn't mean having to sit quietly in a concert hall , and then hastily correcting herself , so that much of what she said cancelled itself out.